Are Video Games Too Damn Long?

Personally I play games of all kinds of lengths, and my perspective kind of has similar variances. I played RE3 Remake when it came out, was also kind of "Eh" on the run time, beat it in a day like maybe 5-6 hours. Normally I would add that creation of assets of all kinds, alongside programming and level/game/mechanic/whatever design might cost the same but are consolidated into higher quality for less quantity but in this case a lot of those assets and design were already there in RE2 Remake, and the new ones were of the same quality as RE2 (though I can't say anything for how the pipeline evolved/grew/became more efficient between the two games). I also played Doom Eternal when it released, and that being a 20 hour game or so I didn't think about that at all. I also have not gone back and replayed either of these games, as I tend to only "Perfect" games I really really loved such as: Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Got it at release, played it to platinum, loved it, didn't think it was too long for me personally. Some sections that got "stretched" from the OG weren't just padding to me, they seemed to add character/relationship growth that made later scenes feel better, mainly thinking about the tunnels with Aerith and Cloud. Time was.... i don't remember, over 100 probably. Other longer form examples include Persona 5: Main game was like 120, Platinum was another 100. And Fire Emblem 3 Houses: 400+ hours for all 4 routes. I also played Last of Us Pt 2, and I did not platinum but I beat it in 25 hours and I think taking 15 away would have been way too much personally. /Maybe/ some sections could be cut down or sped up a bit, possibly by removing some of the combat encounters, but outside of that I personally felt the story was being told and moving along well outside of those encounters that can take up a decent chunk of time, but I don't think you can cut 15 hours worth without removing most combat. Note: I am the kind of person who takes narrative based games slowly so as to take in as much information as possible, and do a lot of side quests so I end up spending a lot of optional time in game. At the time I played most of these, FF7R, P5, RE3, Doom Eternal, also Monster Hunter World (main story mostly) I was working part time and doing personal work/studies at the same time so my game time was and still is somewhat limited, but not as much as someone working a full time job with a family. And even still, there are hundreds of games I have not played I would love to, and I physically cannot gather the time for every game in the world, so it's not just about how long they are but about choosing what games to prioritize. You can't play every AAA game that comes out already, regardless of who you are, so picking and choosing what is most important to you is as much a factor as anything else is the way I see it.

20 hours is perfect👴

I've been going back and replaying a ton of games that I've already beaten multiple times, but I got the urge to re-experience them after a few years away and found them even more enjoyable than I had when they came out.

Is... is friend of the show still applicable?

I think 15-20 hrs is a good limit for the $60 threshold....if a game is 10-15 it should be $40, any game that's sub 10 hrs should just be seen as a dlc and shouldn't be more $30. These are my personal feelings, and a game wouldn't be review bombed if it's charged in a fair way.

The main reason why sports games are so popular is because you jump on, play a few rounds, and move on. With games like Witcher, god of war, jrpgs, you have to dedicate time to play them and there are some days where that just isn’t entertaining. To counter the point made, why should I micromanage my time to dedicate hrs to a 100+ hr game, when I can easily entertain myself with a shorter and much more easily digestible round based, story, or online game? I like what FF7r did in splitting it into parts. It makes it feel like a tv show. You get on, play a chapter. Do it again until you finish and you have a couple weeks worth of quality gaming, but you Finish the story that was laid out and don’t spend months doing so. As far as the money argument, the studios should decide what profit margin they want to earn and set prices that way. None of this new game=set amount bcuz it’s normal. And if the games becomes too expensive as a single one. Break it into 2 parts and charge accordingly. Evans argument is definitely more balanced, people enjoy games. People won’t feel ripped off if they enjoy the game and continue playing it even after completion. However, you buy an 80hr game, but never can set aside the time to truly enjoy the game, after a few months of the game just sitting there, there’s a bit of regret. So are games too long? They certainly can be. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way that developers should create they story as they want it to be told, rather than shooting for a content quota. Sorry, I know this was massive.

Kdin i love you but the whole "you're just improperly managing your time" thing is a big yikes

Jason Schreier is a hack

Time is relative. You can sink 100s of hours in one game without even realizing, while shorter games feel like a slog. If a game is good, you don’t notice a longer experience because you want more. You have the mental momentum. And when you’re in that state of enjoyment, and it ends early, you feel cheated. On the flip side, if a game is bad, every hour played feels like an eternity. It’s the classic situation of staring at the clock in class and watching each second tick by agonizingly slow. If you’re invested in what’s going on, you don’t even notice the clock, and time slips away. Before anyone addresses whether a game is too long or too short, you need to decide if the game feels good to play or not. Perfect example is the Last of Us 2, with an average run time of 30 hours, which is double that of the first game. That game was not fun to play, and it was painfully obvious that Naughty Dog padded the run time by giving Abby equal treatment to Ellie, and then padding the game even further with an arguably unnecessary and improper epilogue in Santa Barbara. Here’s the thing though: Pokémon Sword and Shield also has an average run time of 30-40 hours if you take the time to explore and talk to NPCs for items (less if you just steamroll through), and that’s if you just want to become Champion; there’s even more to do afterwards. Yet Pokémon didn’t feel like the slog that Last of Us 2 did despite having comparable run times. The quality of the game affects our perception of time. I don’t think anyone can really say “X hours is a good length” without first addressing whether or not the game is even enjoyable to play.

Here are a few points to consider: - The question makes no sense if you exclude a discussion of genres. A clicker game that does not take a 1000 hours to complete is ripping you off, even if it was "free". A visual novel that takes more than five hours (for the first main runthrough) is really, really pushing the envelop with maintaining a gamers interest. Genre matters a LOT. - How do you value your time; for reference a book costs how much and takes how long to finish? a movie takes how long and costs how much? playing a game at an arcade takes hw long and costs how much? (best to measure this as dollars/hr ;) - If you want to watch a movie you can see it at the cinema (e.g. $20) or buy it for home watching either new BluRay (e.g. $15) or second hand (e.g. $5)... all for the same two(ish) hours. - Most people do not finish games - 80% / 20% is a good rule of thumb for a single finish state (not completionist). - Most people do not do all the optional side quests - unless they are not optional (i.e. grind is required). - Recent stats suggest that the average person plays between three and five games a year (this used to be the number purchased as well but Steam has increased this without really changing the number of games that people play) - these stats tend to exclude "mobile" games likes clickers, farmville and other types of not-really-a-game because their players tend to exclude them. - The biggest players of games by hours put in are children and younger single men, the mainstay of gamers are working adults with the lowest level gamers tending to be retirees... although some retirees spend a huge amount of time sometimes they almost invariably spend that time only on one or two games across multiple years. - All the arguments about length of game are made by people who assume the game has a story... if the game does not have a story then why do people play? - A good gameplay loop means a game can last a long time at the same time as being very short or infinite e.g. Jackbox games, Tetris, Elite (the original BBC version), Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, PubG or Fortnite, Doki Doki Literature Club, Persona Five, Minecraft, etc. - What is important to note about all these games is that the gameplay loop is short enough that you can quickly finish one or more in one sitting (assuming a "day" is a loop in a couple of those exmples), in almost all cases you can finish them in a sitting that even a completely stressed parent can manage - this is where you might even be able to argue that Mincraft is either the king in this respect (mine block, place block is pretty short! :D - What is bad about most story games is that you have to remember what is happening, not just between sessions but also within a single session; most books and movies don't require this at - but if they do we say they are bad and not worth watching - TV when weekly episodes were the normal way to watch TV were superstars and getting people to remember the important points of the story for a whole week at a time! (Yes, it's a cliche cliffhanger ending but it means you can go a week without forgetting where in the story you are - this is also done by the better authors if they use chapters in their books, that way the book can be put down without the main points being forgotten ... even better authors don't let you put their book down; likewise the best games... but the time taken for a book is not nearly as life threatening as the time taken by a game!) - Most problems with games come down to good story / bad gameplay loop or good gameplay loop / bad story. This is likely because in large studios these are written independantly; a good exception is GTA V Online. When on a mission you generaly only need to know the story for that mission, long arc story might exist but it does not impact the gameplay loop, the gameplay loop, equally, does not impact the story (beyond pass or fail) when the long arc story is being told (cutscenes or invunerability) - though there are exceptions to this but who ever made a perfect game with a story? (Without a story there are contenders but most are very old and still played e.g. Tetris - extremely tight gameplay loop for anyone but the highly skilled who have sunk thousands of hours into it... which makes it a good game I guess and certaintly worth the money you paid for it!) - Star Citizen is the definition of bad value for money (but many EA games are up there due to loot boxes and being buggy as hell); most "free" games are not the definition of good value for money since time is money (they they are often grind very heavy) and fun is not a thing they often excel at, better would be games like Minecraft, Tetris, GTA V Online, Animal Crossing, Transport Tycoon and many, many JRPGs (whose main difference from Western RPGs is their short gameplay loop) whose owners often play hundreds or thousands of happy hours over the years of ownership making them insanely worthwhile.

The irony for me is that I don't read / watch / experience stories more than once because I remember the majority of the story after one time through so for me to play a game more than once requires non-story elements... so I've spent no more than tens of hours in story based games but tens of thousands of hours in non-story based games (or ones where I make the story as I go). The only exception to this is games I've helped dev in which case I've spent maybe a few more tens of hours in sorty based games I've helped dev... (and the same again in non-story based games) but then I'm gaining something other than the story in doing that, obviously, because I already know the story or I couldn't write it! :D For reference I balance the cost I am willing to purchase a game for against my other primary entertainment sources; books - which are cents and hour in cost (even if I do buy them new)... so AAA stand no chance with me unless they do a giveaway or are in the bargin bin (in which case it is likely a rubbish game so I won't bother - I am hyper decerning about my entertainment these days because there is so much of it available I have to be to avoid missing anything I'd actually like to consume. A demonstration of this is that those few authors I like I have consumed every book they have published and a good majority of all other written materials they have publically published - this has become harder with the rise of the internet as they often write a lot online but I still manage it to a large degree (but then most authors I have followed are now dead or primarily wrote before the advent of the WWW). I am currently between dead tree authors but I have plenty to entertainment here on RT and in computer games so... maybe I'll never find another. P.S. If you're looking for recommendations of dead tree authors I recommend you avoid anyone notable for literature unless you have found that style interesting in the past, in which case stick to those types of author; they are kinda like marmite in my opinion! :D (Though it doesn't help that most couldn't write a science fiction or fantasy story to save their careers and most couldn't handle comedy much better - Shakespeare might be argued as an exception, as with Chaucer, but I'd argue they only get included as greats of literature because to exclude the greatest writer(s) of all time would make the "literatii" that gatekeep the world of "literature" a laughing stock. It's also why they exclude the authors of the best selling fiction books of all time (take a guess ;)

To me good pacing can solve both problems where you can get a contained experience for part of the game. The Mass Effect ganes did this well with big tent pole missions and plenty of interesting side content where you have good jumping on and off points. But I will say I live in the middle of 10-20 hour games but not ones I'm gonna be dedicating the next 3 months to cause it's just long for the sake of long.